I Built…This!

The set I purchased came with a book of instructions. It had a preview page showing a number of different things that could be built. It appears that some of them had to be looked up online, though a few came with instructions in the booklet.

I decided to create this weird looking orange exploration vehicle. At the time, I thought it was a spaceship – I didn’t realize it was an ocean exploration set. But ocean exploration sounds like a great theme to me!

My First Creation in Decades

When I started, I was a bit apprehensive about building this creation. I don’t usually care much what other people think about my hobbies, but in the back of my mind was the nagging doubt that Lego is indeed a toy built for kids. I really liked the idea of becoming a master at building, but what if that’s the only part I liked – the idea? What if I realized, in this moment, that I didn’t actually enjoy building at all?

That small nagging fear was soon fixed, as I began building. All the satisfaction and joy of snapping these little pieces together came flooding back to me within a few steps. Building this vehicle was easy to follow, and I got a small bit of excitement each time I got to rip a new bag of pieces open! By the time I finished, I had a small sense of pride in my progress and accomplishment.

It may seem a bit silly that something this small could give me a feeling like that. But it was a genuine emotion – perhaps building things with Lego could be more than just fun with a toy?

I will say, the best part of the whole build was snapping the wheels on the vehicle. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed that satisfyingly snug “click!”

I was done fairly quickly, within 10 minutes. But it opened up a quiet sense of possibility. I had something like 500 pieces to create things with, and I had only done a single combination of maybe 50 of them. There was so much more I could do!

The Journey to Mastering the Brick

The motivation that brought me here was both from the Lego Movie, and the Netflix series the Toys that Made us. I loved the nostalgia and joy that Lego could bring me, and loved the idea of improving my building skill to so I could make cool stuff. Building this orange exploration vehicle was kind of a first step in that direction.

Since my goal is to make cool stuff, I have been searching to find cool Lego creations online. In my last post I talked about the overwhelming experience of buying Lego at the store – searching Lego online has been overwhelming to a magnitude more! There is so much to learn, and so much toy, building, architecture, sharing, and community culture that I never knew existed! I’ll be posting my findings as I continue writing, but I wanted to share a cool bull that I found when I was searching. I have quite a long way to go on this journey. I think, today, I took the first step!